California's Sky-High Minimum Wage Set to Hurt the Poor as Jack in the Box Automates

"It 'just makes sense' to replace people with robots if wages rise."

Democrats love a good minimum wage raise, in spite of the fact that it actually hurts the poor. The Left aren't much for figures and economics; they prefer good feelings and political ideals that are as nice-sounding as they are unworkable. The actual result of their policies is a secondary consideration at best.

Case in point: the ill-advised act of Governor Jerry Brown, and the subsequent, cornered response by California fast food mainstay Jack-in-the-Box. The Golden State's ultra-left-wing state legislature scored a big win for leftist softies and entitled millennials in 2016 when they voted to raise the legally-mandated minimum hourly pay to $15, to be gradually reached by 2022.

According to lefties, the increase will result in unskilled laborers' improved ability to earn a living. However, the ugly head of reality has reared: in an effort to maintain profit margins, businesses will simply hire fewer people.

According to Slate:

"Jack in the Box’s CEO says it 'just makes sense' to replace people with robots if wages rise."

"[The CEO of Jack in the Box] indicated that the fast food chain will reconsider replacing human cashiers with machines like self-service kiosks as California gradually increases its minimum wage over the next four years, according to Business Insider. 'As we see the rising costs of labor, it just makes sense,' he reportedly said on Tuesday at the ICR Conference in Florida. Comma claims that previous tests of automated kiosks at certain Jack in the Box locations, which began in 2006, resulted in greater efficiency and higher checks on average. The installation costs just weren’t worth it at the time. However, California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a law in 2016 that will raise the state’s minimum wage incrementally each year to $15 by 2022. And California is just a part of a nation-wide wave of minimum wage reforms—17 other states, including New York, Michigan, and Washington, are also seeing increases early this year."

Way to go, Democrats. You're making business more efficient. Perhaps that will be a consolation to the resultantly unemployed poor.

"Automation is a familiar threat from executives unhappy with rising labor costs. Andrew Puzder, the CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s who was briefly Trump’s pick for labor secretary, told Business Insider in 2016 that he would be interested in developing an employee-free restaurant if minimum wages keep rising. '[Robots are] always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,' he told reporters."

Makes perfect sense. However, not everyone on Twitter is keeping up:

So much for the promised wage increases as a result of their generous tax cuts.

Thankfully, there are those who understand the basic concept that an increase in the cost of doing business must be met with an increase in revenue (raised prices, which also hurt the poor) or a change of expenditure:

He misspoke. What he meant to say is it "just makes sense to anyone who passed third-grade arithmetic." https://t.co/bmTNprCVEm